Thursday, April 9

President Barack Obama favors offering a public plan for health insurance modeled on Medicare, declaring recently, "The thinking on the public option has been that it gives consumers more choices, and it helps give — keep the private sector honest, because there's some competition out there." Not surprisingly, the editors at the New York Times endorsed the idea in an editorial yesterday...The Times' opinion editors evidently don't bother to read the news sections of their own paper before pronouncing on public policy. Just a week before, the Times found that Medicare reimbursements were so low that increasing numbers of doctors are refusing to accept patients covered by the government insurance program.